GOING TO FIGHT A FIRE: "What could playing a 2,500-year-old board game from Japan and fighting a forest fire possibly have in common?" Readers find out in the September issue of Odyssey magazine, the kid's science mag. "Strategy," says the article by Nick D'Alto. "Master our game of Go, and you might be able to stop a fire in its tracks." The article uses go strategy to describe effective firefighting techniques. "Some
wildland fires are simply too big to extinguish directly. Instead, as in the game of Go, you must surround them to control the flames." The article even includes a sample grid on the back of the magazine so readers can try their new fire-fighting go strategies. Thanks to Jack Pinkerton of Chevy Chase, MD for the tip!

ALL ABOUT GOBASE.ORG: "Gobase.org was created by Jan van der Steen of The Netherlands," reports Jan-Willem Bouman. "During van der Steen's university studies, he worked intensively with computers. An avid go player, his marriage to Kishiko Shimizu (a Japanese 4d, with a 6d father), helped him develop contacts in Japan and provided him with sources of information and study material about go. Naturally, van der Steen wanted to share this mass of study material with other go players, and the Internet was the perfect medium." Find out more about how van der Steen created gobase.org and take a tour with Jan-Willem Bouman in the attached PDF, which was transla
ted by Merijn de Jong, editor of the Dutch Go Journal, where the original version of this article originally appeared (July 2005 issue).

TAKING THE CHALLENGE: "I'm hoping that publicly committing to the 10 kyu challenge will help me keep my 'nose to the grindstone'" says 2006 10k Challenger Robert Solovay. Want to get stronger too? Join the 2006 Shodan Challenge! Open to players of all strengths, the Challenge now has five Divisions: the 20-kyu Challenge, for beginners; the 10-kyu Challenge for 11-20k players; the 5-kyu Challenge for 6-10k players, the Shodan Challenge for 5-1k players and the 5d Challenge for 1-4d players. Challengers publicly accept the challenge of trying to achieve a specific goal by next year's U.S. Go Congress August 12-20 in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The E-Journal will track the progress of each Challenger and will provide special incentives and assistance, including free game analyses, books, software and more. Make a move to improve! Fo
r more details on how to qualify for the Challenge, email us today at journal@usgo.org

JAPANESE TEEN SCHOOLS ELDERS: Sixteen-year-old Iyama Yuta 4P has knocked off three top pros in the Agon Kiriyama Cup in Japan. Yuta started off by defeating Cho U 9P and O Rissei 9P in the first two rounds, and then polished off Cho Chikun 9P in the semifinals, forcing a resignation. That puts the youngster in the finals against Kobayashi Satoru 9P. If Yuta wins, he will be the youngest player ever to win a pro title in Japan. The current record is held by Cho Chikun, who won the New Stars tournament at the age of 17. The game will be held October 8th at the headquarters of the Agon Buddhist sect in Kyoto. - drawn from a report by John Powers

LEE WINS FIRST ROUND IN KOREAN SUPERSTAR BATTLE: Lee Changho 9P won the first game of the best-of-five GX Caltex Cup title match by resignation last week. The
battle between Lee Changho 9P and Choi Cheolhan 9P, two of the top three Korean players, in the 10th GX Caltex Cup (also known as the LG Refined Oil Cup) is one to watch. You can download the game record from the go4go.net site (look under Korean GS Caltex Cup). The second game is scheduled for next week. Lee has held this title five times, including the last two years. This is Choi's first challenge for this title.

TOP PROS TAKE AIM AT CHO U: As the current Meijin and Oza title-holder, as well as having won the most recent NHK and NEC Cups, Cho U 9P is generally considered the number one player in Japan at the moment, but he has his work cut out for him if he's to stay on top. Cho must defend both the Meijin and Oza titles this Fall against strong challengers. He won the first game against Kobayashi Satoru 9P in his defense of the Meijin earlier this month, and it is mathematically possible for this title match to be settled before his defense of the Oza against Yam
ashita Keigo 9P begins on October 28th. Yamashita, who was also the challenger for this title last year against Cho, won the challenger's position in the Oza last week by defeating Nakaonoda Tomomi 9P.

HIGHER KOMI WORKING IN JAPAN: The higher 6.5 komi introduced in Japan three years ago seems to be having the desired effect, reports John Powers on the Nihon Kiin's home page. Used in pro tournaments in Japan for three years now, in the thousand games played so far this year at the Nihon Kiin, White's winning percentage is 49.48%, the closest White has come to parity since records involving komi have been collected.

THE LAST MOVE: My First True TeacherBy Keith Arnold 5d Moon Cha, a great man and a great go player, passed away two years ago this month. The upcoming first annual Moon Cha Memorial Tournament (September 24 in Germantown, MD) provides a welcome opp
ortunity to remember an old friend and teacher. Moon was amongst the first wave of strong Asian players who dominated an increasingly active tournament scene on the East Coast in the 1960s and '70s. Along with Matsuda, Kwon, Horiguchi and Shen in New York, Ishikawa in Philadelphia and Kang in Baltimore, he was one of the stalwarts of the "pre Ing Cup" generation - challenging for the U.S. Championship in 1965 and 1966. He was perhaps unique amongst these strong Asian players in that he came to go as an adult, and after becoming a master level chess player. Despite this late start, his knowledge of the game was second to none. By the time I started attending tournaments, Moon was no longer a favorite in the Easterns, or the New York Meijin, but you could always count on him to knock off one or more of the top players. Moon was my first true teacher, and he loved to go over games, his
criticism as scathing and blunt as his advice was clear and authoritative. I have never seen an amateur player so proficient at tewari analysis, the method of changing the order of moves to discover inefficiencies. Even into the 1990s, Moon's analysis was held in such high respect that far stronger players like Yuan Zhou and I-Han Lui would never miss a chance to show him their games. I will always be thankful for the interest he took in my game. I don't know whether he actually saw some talent in me, or perhaps he simply recognized that I shared his absolute love for this game. I guess I will never know, but I'll always remember staying up late into the night going over my Congress games with him in a steamy dorm room at the 3rd Go Congress in Mass. Hours later I felt better prepared for the weekend Easterns, but envious of Moon's energy and brilliance. When I got stronger, h
e was delighted to be paired with me, not because it was an easy win -- which it was -- but because he was truly delighted with the opportunity to measure my progress. Always the competitor, when I finally beat him in what would turn out to be our last game, I know he was proud of me, but he was also eager to get his revenge. I wish he had the chance.

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